A Study of the Book of Mormon

Alma 9:1-6 There is a very interesting pattern that is illustrated in these verses, and sets up the wickedness of this town. In just the first six verses of this chapter, the one thing that these verses illustrate clearly is that the people of Ammonihah do not have a relationship with God. That is the cause of their wickedness. Hand in hand with with their failure to have any sort of relationship with God also comes a lack of knowledge of the truth and that which is true. This is hugely significant because it was on a foundation of error and  antagonism, or even animosity, towards God, that the people of Ammonihah had set themselves up for destruction. The footnote on the question "Who is God, that sendeth no more authority than one man... ? " ( see vs. 6 ) causes me to see that their questions of disbelief are on par with Cain, king Noah, and the Pharoah of Egypt. That kind of hard-heartedness demonstrates wickedness to its fullest extent. Though not mentioned anywhere in t...

Alma 8:29-32 After many days, the word of the Lord came to Alma: "Go; and also say unto my servant Amulek, go forth and prophesy unto this people, saying—Repent ye, for thus saith the Lord, except ye repent I will visit this people in mine anger; yea, and I will not turn my fierce anger away." In subsequent verses, we learn that Alma and Amulek accomplished this commandment of the Lord through "the spirit and power which the Lord had given them." ( vs 32 ) So it is, that those that go about the work of the Lord when called of the Lord to do so , they are empowered to do it through the influence of the Holy Ghost. In other words, they are endowed with power, or they have power given them. Verse 31 takes pains to explain the evidence of that power, in that they weren't able to be confined or thrown in dungeons, nor could anyone kill them. Now later in the account we learn that Alma and Amulek were thrown into prison (and verse 31 makes reference to this), and...

Alma 8:19-28 On the surface, this is a fairly simple exchange wherein Alma returns to Ammonihah by a different way and is taken in by Amulek. There are a couple of notes on these verses that I find significant. Of Amulek, it was required to exercise the Christ-like virtue of compassion and to feed the hungry. That may seem an insignificant side note given that he had also received direction and inspiration from an angel to entertain Alma, and yet I think this is at the very core of why the angel appeared to Amulek, and not someone else. When Alma returns to Ammonihah, he is hungry. We later learn that Alma had actually been fasting for many days. ( vs. 26 ) Upon petitioning an unknown stranger, Amulek identifies himself to Alma as a Nephite and goes further to say that he knows Alma to be a prophet of God. Near the end of these verses , we learn two notable points in this story: 1) that Alma did not immediately return to the task of preaching the gospel, but spent some time in the hous...